Prince Achille Murat

Prince Achille Murat (21 January 1801-15 April 1847) was the eldest son of Joachim Murat, the Crown Prince of Naples from 1808 to 1815, and Prince Murat from 1815 to 1847 (succeeding Joachim and preceding Prince Napoleon Lucien Charles Murat).

Biography
Prince Achille Murat was born in Paris, France in 1801, the son of Joachim Murat and Caroline Bonaparte. He was his father's heir until his overthrow and execution in 1815, upon which the Murat family was exiled from Naples and forced to flee to Vienna, Austria. When Murat turned 21, he received permission to emigrate to America, and he took a tour of the United States under an assumed name. His countenance and mannerism gave him a striking resemblance to his uncle Napoleon I, and, while he renounced his European titles and citizenship in order to become a US citizen, his wide social connections brought him to Washington DC. He befriended Richard Keith Call, Florida's territorial delegate to the US Congress, and he settled in St. Augustine, Florida in 1824. He served in the militia under his friend Joseph Marion Hernandez, and he bought 2,800 acres of land to found the Parthenope plantation. In 1825, he founded the Lipona Plantation 15 miles east of Tallahassee, naming it after Naples in an anagramatic form. He became a Jacksonian, and he served as a colonel during the Seminole Wars. In 1826, he befriended Ralph Waldo Emerson, with whom he discussed politics, society, and history, and Murat wrote his observations on American politics, daily life, slavery, economics, and literature in fluent French, Italian, and English. He was a staunch defender of slavery, although he professed to fight for human liberty. Following the 1830 July Revolution, he returned to Europe, and he became the commander of a regiment of the Belgian Legion. However, he failed to regain his family fortune, so he returned to Tallahassee in 1834. In 1835, he and his wife moved to a new sugar cane plantation outside New Orleans, Louisiana, and he lost his Lipona plantation in 1839 during a harsh recession. They moved to the smaller Econchatti plantation in Jefferson County, Florida, where Murat died in 1847 at the age of 46.